Why you ShouldN’T Nofollow your blog comments
May 20th, 2008 | 35 comments
I just came across a great article at Andy Beard’s Niche Marketing Blog where Andy explains exactly why there is nothing wrong with removing the nofollow attribute from blog comments.
The post is in reply to a post made by David Naylor, who more or less says that you should nofollow your blog comments because it invites spam, which in turn causes your readers to lose trust in you.
This isn’t anything new. All kinds of people say the same thing. The only problem with that is this: I’m looking at David’s blog and I’m seeing an average of approximately 7 comments per post. When I look at my own blog I see an average of about 20 or so comments per post with 30-50 comments being normal on posts which I send my list to.
I give live links to all commentators with 3 or more comments and I spend about 5-10 minutes a day MAX moderating comments and although I’m sure you could find a handful of generic comments, no obvious spam gets through.
To me, that handful of generic comments is worth giving back to my readers with a live link! I’m honestly not being arrogant and I’m sure there are some people who don’t care for me, just like anyone else, but I honestly don’t think I have a problem with trust.
If anything by using dofollow I’ve BUILT trust, as my readers know I’m not afraid to give back!
It’s all about building trust, creating relationships and helping people!
Unless you get hundreds of comments on every blog post, YOU CAN’T use the excuse of comment spam and if you have a good internal linking structure, you can’t use the excuse of lost authority. So what’s the real problem? I’d love to know? 
photocredit: Brian Purkiss
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20th May, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Now what you should have done is used the same title as Dave and me
I must admit I spend a little more time on comments per day, but most of the actual time spent is reading the comments and replying to them. I know the sites of most of my regular readers, and they pass through my filters automatically anyway.
The tough decision are think like someone you know linking through to a BANS site. Then it is a judgement call and that is the rare occasion I might delete a link, but leave a comment intact.
20th May, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Well, it’s close, so we’ll see how it ranks.
I normally don’t spend a whole lot of time on their sites, although I should spend more, not only to learn more about them, but to moderate what sites my blog is linking to. So, I’ll give Dave that. If you want to be REAL careful, it would take more time than my 5-10 minutes a day.
But I do make it a point to reply to all comments that require a response and at least try to even reply to compliments with “thank yous”
20th May, 2008 at 5:20 pm
But you nofollowed these commentd
20th May, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@ Dave - I use Lucia’s Linky Love plugin, which nofollows all new comments for a few hours and all comments left by those with less than 3 comments, as I stated above.
Later on today you’ll notice Andy’s comment will be followed, as he has more than 3 comments on this blog and yours as well, if you have 3 or more.
20th May, 2008 at 5:27 pm
so if I interact a little more.. I get link
20th May, 2008 at 5:31 pm
“so if I interact a little more.. I get link”
Yep, as long as it adds to the conversation. More in my comment policy.
20th May, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I agree totally on your comment policy, I was getting porn, normally second click distance that was my major problem, then I noticed my blog knocking people down a position in the serps when they linked to their sites from the comments on my blog..
could have been some thing totally different but the issue went away when i added Nofollow back on again ..
DaveN
20th May, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I really love when people use do follow on there blogs. But, does google penalize sites that use it? I have turned it off on several of my sites because of this fear.
20th May, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Josh, I’m glad you mentioned the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin you use because I have a few blogs that I want to start using it with. I also like the plugin that Caroline Middlebrook uses on her blog that links to a given blogger’s most recent post below their comment.
Once I get these plugins installed and have a few weeks of hard data I’ll have to write a post discussing the effects I see.
20th May, 2008 at 6:31 pm
@ Dave - Thanks. I think it’s a pretty fair policy. I can’t imagine Google penalizing a site, which is linked to from a dofollow blog. If that were the case we could just leave comments on dofollow blogs and link to our competitors, right.
I understand your thinking though and I suppose I don’t blame you for doing so. Many people use nofollow and I don’t have a major issue with it, I’m just quick to response when claims are made that it will actually HURT you.
I won’t lie to you, I have no idea. But I can tell you I haven’t seen any implication that removing nofollow has hurt my authority or done anything but helped the authority of my commentators blogs.
And judging by Andy’s post, he’s doing just fine as well
@ Washington - I haven’t seen anything that would lead me to believe that Google has penalized any blog for removing nofollow. If that were the case all forums that allow sig links would need to be penalized too and all that’s going to do is decrease the value of the SERPS by removing good information. btw, have you read my comment policy? you may want to
@ Jason - I believe the plugin she uses is Comment Luv. Pretty neat plugin.
20th May, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Josh, have you seen any of the link and switch stuff…
also what gets me is I have got Spam (276) on the last post alone (the nofollow post
DaveN
20th May, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I’ve been thinking of making my comments do follow for a while now .. the reasons are obvious as you stated in the end of your post. Why not ?
IMO most blogs who don’t have a massive amount of comments on each post will benefit from making comments do follow.
About Google handing out penalties for removing no follow, I don’t think so, but then again, who knows what the SE’s will do when a large amount of bloggers decide to remove no-follow …
Lex
20th May, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Personally, I loved the idea of No NoFollow (later to become Do Follow…a name I don’t particularly care for, but have learned to live with…since I first heard of it). In fact, I have it installed on all the blogs I use (there are about 7 of them…some are functioning more as a CMS, some more as newsletters). For me, the bottom line is that visitors are the lifeblood of my sites. Whether thru visiting or commenting or clicking on ads…whatever they do…their presence is the reason I’m there. I want them to know that they matter. If I can help them get a little more exposure for their sites, then I do it happily.
And as far as porn and other lame links go, Akismet works very well for me. I get tons of crap, of course…hundreds of such links with some frequency…but I just delete the spam cache from time to time. I don’t read thru them all…so the time investment is minimal.
And I do moderate all my comments…so nothing would even sneak by me anyway. As long as the comments are helpful, it’s all good. If there are no comments or attempts to spam, they will never be seen on my sites.
20th May, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[...] fine for visible blogs with a decent readership to proclaim ‘nofollow comments!’, but for the rest of us, dofollow increases your chance of getting the conversation going (so what if it increases the [...]
20th May, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I suppose I should investigate the Linky Love plug-in. Heard of it before but never got around to yet another good idea.
I fully agree with your remarks on the over inflation of the tasks of monitoring comments. People put up a blog, which almost by definition includes comments, complain when they get no traffic/comments, and they moan because there are three or four in the ‘in-box’.
I guess, as humans, we just have an in-built need to complain ;-).
BTW, I never select or avoid a blog to read … or comment on … based on their no follow attribute, too much time focusing on this question will take away from your really important efforts to ‘grow’ your blog. Follow or don’t follow, but provide some meat to go along with the other trillion plus ‘potato’ blogs.
20th May, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Personally, I like the CommentLuv plugin the best of everything I’ve tried. I love the idea of seeing the titles of the blog posts of others without having to visit their sites first. I thought it was a very creative idea.
And, I have to confess…I sometimes DO visit and comment on blogs in part because of their DoFollow status. I wouldn’t ever comment exclusively for that reaosn…I’ve visited hundreds of DoFollow blogs and found nothing worth commenting on…but I am more likely to take a moment and share a thought when I know that there’s a tiny bit of benefit to me…although I believe there’s some benefit even without the DoFollow thing as well.
20th May, 2008 at 11:46 pm
It’s a give and take. The commenter gets a link and the blog owner gets some content.
20th May, 2008 at 11:59 pm
@Washington - The only “penalty” would be a resulting Page Rank bleed (or worse if your site ends up linking to enough “bad” sites). But, as Josh points out, if you control your PR flow well to begin with, the effects would be minimal. Besides, PR doesn’t have that much direct impact on whether or not a particular page ranks well. I routinely beat the pants off sites that are 2 or 3 notches above me on the PR scale.
Personally, I think if you’re going to allow comments on your blog, you should dofollow them (Lucia’s plugin rocks and addresses the spam monster to some degree). You’re getting content in exchange for a link. Nothing wrong with that. If not, then just turn them off entirely a la Steve Pavlina.
-Kurt Schmitt
21st May, 2008 at 4:30 am
The idea of adding a comment policy is a good one. On many blogs, you aren’t sure what is acceptable. Also, it must be a good way to encourage more comments.
Andy
21st May, 2008 at 9:55 am
[...] Why you ShouldN’T Nofollow your blog comments - EZ online Money [...]
21st May, 2008 at 11:54 am
I’m considering removing the nofollow on my site as well. It’s pretty well protected from automated spam, and I think removing the nofollow for all commenters (not just registered users) could be really beneficial.
I’d have to agree with the above, as long as the comment is good, the site owner gets content in exchange for a link!
21st May, 2008 at 1:37 pm
It’s a fine line - a blog needs an audience, but at the same time, that audience, especially on a marketing/make money site is going to want something in return - in this case, a link.
So the middle ground of 3 comments equals a link is a good one, in my book — keeps the flybys out for the most part.
Andy raised an interesting note about editing out a link. I’m torn on this. One of my niche sites, people comment and leave commercial sites in the URL field — I generally let those go so long as there’s a valid comment on the site.
Isabella Murphy
(by the way, new commenter, but I’ll definitely be back — I like the site! Came here from Justin Brooke’s page)
22nd May, 2008 at 1:01 am
Here’s my question, and can someone PLEASE be as definitive as possible…so tired of varying opinions…
Are links on NO FOLLOW blogs worth anything or not. *sigh*
I mean really, I’m thinkin marketers had linking strategies long before all the do-follow hooha.
I comment on 50 no follow blogs with a good ranking - worthless for linkbacks?
I’m a huge fan of do follow, but holy cow the answer to this would make life easier
22nd May, 2008 at 1:57 am
@ Dennis … a definitive answer? Sure. It depends. Seriously I think many are making thisa way more complex. The question of comments being worth more or less on ‘do follow’ links depends on your prupose in leaving comments.
I have a lot of traffic from high quality blogs where I comment regularly. Most of them are no-follow. People read what I have to say, click on my web site URL and if I did my job right I have a new reader/customer.
However this does nothing for my pagerank. If I were after page rank rather thna readers and friendship with more successful bloggers it would be a waste of time. But blog comments, in general, for page rank are awaste of time. The follow/no follow issue is trivial.
You don’t get a link from the blog home page when the blogger turns on ‘following’. You get a link from the comment page.
The home page of this blog is 5 … kudos to Josh for gettingit up there! But the page rank of this page is ‘unranked’ so follow or no-follow this comment page is useless in page rank. Google does not count links with no page rank.
I’ve been watching this debate for more than year now and am amazed at how many miss the point … the page that comments appear on, on have little or no rank … so the question is moot…
Comments have advantages but page rank is not one of them.
22nd May, 2008 at 8:50 am
There’s apparently *some* value in nofollow links, but it’s all very circumstantial for Google.
MSN and Yahoo! both seem to not pay attention to the nofollow flag and treat them as just links.
22nd May, 2008 at 6:32 pm
@ DaveN - I haven’t noticed any switcharoos
but good point, that is something dofollow blogs need to look out for.
And you’re nofollow, so there ya go
I still get spam, but not that much. nofollow simply doesn’t fix the spam problem.
@ Lex G - “but then again, who knows what the SE’s will do when a large amount of bloggers decide to remove no-follow …” That’s true, but until then I’ll continue to dofollow
@ Chuck - “their presence is the reason I’m there. I want them to know that they matter. If I can help them get a little more exposure for their sites, then I do it happily.” That’s what it’s all about. I like the CommentLuv plugin too. I need to see if Lucia can, or already has, tweaked LLL to do the same with CommentLuv as it does with normal comment links.
@ Dave - Yep, you should. I highly recommend it.
“People put up a blog, which almost by definition includes comments, complain when they get no traffic/comments, and they moan because there are three or four in the ‘in-box’.”
lol that couldn’t be more true! touche’
@ Compact - True, it’s always good to read the blog owners comment policy before commenting
@ Kurt - Very true, but in regards to this statement “Besides, PR doesn’t have that much direct impact on whether or not a particular page ranks well.” I’m not referring to Google Toolbar PageRank. I’m referring to authority in general, which does have a direct impact on rankings.
@ Andy - Thanks. Now if I could get everyone to read it. I can’t say that I blame them though. I have to admit, when I visit a blog I’m not automatically in search of their comment policy.
@ Jack - Not only that, but he builds valuable relationships with his readers, which builds community.
@ Isabella - Glad to have you, glad you enjoy the blog. I think what it should come down to is this: Is the site a legitimate effort to add value to the web? If it’s not it shouldn’t be linked to from your blog. However, I’ll admit, I’m not as strict as I should be.
@ Dennis - Are they worth “anything” yes. Some SE’s will count them, but not Google. You’ll also get direct traffic in many cases…direct traffic is certainly worth something.
@ Dave - You make a good point. Commenting on blogs shouldn’t be about the link anyway. It should be about getting to know people and taking part in discussion.
Commenting on blogs provides an excellent way to get to know A-listers and people who can help you in the long run! Not to mention customers in some cases.
@ Jack - Yep, as far as I know, nofollow links still count with MSN and Yahoo…haven’t done any research on the subject lately though.
23rd May, 2008 at 3:03 am
Hey Josh,
I want to do this on my blogs, how do you set it up to give people follow after 3 comments? What plugin do you use?
23rd May, 2008 at 7:32 pm
@ Forest - I use Lucia’s Linky Love , which nofollows all new comments for a few hours and all comments left by those with less than 3 comments
2nd June, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I have taken the nofollow off my blogs and gotten a few more comments. There is always some who will spam just about anything. Seems like a big waste of time to me, but they do it. Like you said it only takes a few minutes to moderate. Keep up the good work
2nd June, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Josh,
I am from the school of “dofollow”, as a matter of fact, I will add to this discussion a little.
Who cares if you lose a couple/few of Google spots (if that were actually happening)?
You are writing for your readers, and not Google right?
This is social networking, blogging, etc… we do not work for Google.
Anyhow…
I am of the firm belief that anyone who takes the time to read one of my blog posts, and then takes the time to comment and add value to the discussion…should be rewarded by a “dofollow” link. I also use CommentLuv, which links to that blogger’s last post.
I am careful not to allow SPAM comments “through the gate.”
Does that mean that this system I use is perfect? No.
Does that mean there is NO possibility at all that Google rankings could suffer a little for myself or anyone linking? No way.
But…
Humans read and comment on my blog, and that is who I would respond to any how…because that is who I write my blog for.
Right now, that means giving my readers “link love” when they are gracious enough to comment and add value to my blog is the way to go.
–Joseph Ratliff
Author of The Profitable Business Edge 2
2nd June, 2008 at 7:02 pm
@ Joseph - Well said! Most people, including myself, start off thinking SE’s are the end all be all. The free traffic is nice, but those who worry more about what people think of their site than what search engines think of their site, are generally those with the most traffic in the long run.
2nd June, 2008 at 7:07 pm
@Josh - The funnier thing is…up until about 5 months ago I was of the “SEO” mindset, and using all the gadgets and tricks to gain traffic.
Once I changed that mindset to writing for humans, my valued readers, my unique visitor traffic TRIPLED in less than 4 weeks…and DOUBLED again the next month, and has been on a continuous upward trend since. My RSS readers also increased dramatically.
Testing, tracking, tweaking, and humans…the secrets to marketing.
2nd July, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[...] not going back to nofollow, but I am tightening the ropes a bit. After my recent post explaining why you shouldn’t nofollow your comments, I actually started to look into it a bit [...]
26th September, 2008 at 12:41 pm
What is your No-Follow policy now. I thought you took the no-follow tags off after 3 approved posts? It appears it is now on almost every post…
Rick
26th September, 2008 at 12:50 pm
@ Rick - Did you think about reading my comment policy?